How do I slosh # and @ so workflowy doesn’t treat them as tags

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    Frank (Workflowy Support)

    Hey Alan,

    Totally understood. For instance, "#ffffff", being the hexadecimal code for white, would appear as a tag in WorkFlowy.

    Do you feel it's necessary to not have this appear as a tag. Is it just a visual thing?

    @rawbytz has a script which "neuters" tags in notes (and reconstitutes them when you toggle). That may or may not be something you'd be interested in. Provided that your code goes into notes as opposed to bullet titles.

    Here's what @rawbytz has to say:

    "I think it depends on what problem you are trying to solve...  Are these unwanted tags polluting the tag picker and/or searches?  Then maybe some kind of neutering (or replacement) ... but that makes copying and using the code elsewhere problematic.If it's strictly aesthetic?  I use CSS to remove the underline.. but I do that for all tags.I don't store much code permanently in WorkFlowy anymore... usually only related to specific projects.  Once I have something useful, it goes into my VSCode snippets file(s)... sooo much more useful than copying and pasting from WF into the code editor."

     

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    Mr Alan Edward Barnes

    My issue is that it pollutes tag lists, and when trying to edit - as soon as you touch/click on it, Workflowy takes action as though it is a tag. Haven’t spent much time thinking about solutions but the immediate ones that comes to mind are:

    1) slosh character, ie backslash with feature to toggle on off rendering of slosh character (ie rendering making no difference to functionality)

    2) blacklist (on typing tag like text select to put it in list to be ignored

    3) enable open/close region to bound areas to ignore tag like text.

    4) custom config of tag prefix. eg I might choose #~  Ideally this feature would also be combined with 3) - custom tags set up for specific regions.

    I think I like 1) best - (simplicity on its side), but 4 as more complete feature that has other benefits in being able to define custom tag prefixes (which may enable add ons using API to do more)

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    Earl N. Richardson

    Here's another possible idea for you.  From your question, I'm not sure if you're aware of Workflowy's 'Find/Replace' tab.  if you already have many bullets that start with a @ or a #, then just do the Workflowy F/R "Find & replace" feature to insert a space in them all, in one fell swoop.  So, for example, every occurrence of '@Test' becomes '@ Test' (a space in the middle).  Then you can retain the @ for any future use, but still edit each single use of 'test' any way you wish.

    By leaving the @ in, you could do the 'F/R' function at any time in the future to reverse them all, and return them to their original text, so that they all become new tags.

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    Mr Alan Edward Barnes

    I don’t understand how Earls suggestion helps. I need to have #include in some text - but don’t want it treated as a tag. There are lots of annotations used in compilers, translators and transpilers that use # @ amongst other prefixes.

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    Earl N. Richardson

    Alan, my bad.  I think I misunderstood your question. 

    And I see what you mean that Workflowy's designed tags ('#' and '@' ) might not be totally compatible with annotations in various professional fields. 

    Perhaps your alternative #1 might be best, just as you said, for simplicity.  Try out #1, and if you don't like it, it's easy to modify or alter it later.  I have several informal hacks and workarounds in my Workflowy that to me are forever 'evolving' and I might modify later. To me a big advantage of Workflowy vs. other organizer software is its simplicity, adaptabilty and flexibillty.  Virtually everyone's Workflowy is probably very different and unique to them -  which, to me, is a beauty of this software.   

    -  Earl 

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    BOB ELLIOTT

    "To me a big advantage of Workflowy vs. other organizer software is its simplicity, adaptabilty and flexibillty."   I find that WorkFlowy has that advantage for me also. I often get tempted to explore some of the other organizer software that has automatic or semi automatic functions, but I find myself  actually using WorkFlowy to get my work done.

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